


A Magical Menagerie

by SegaBarrett



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: cottoncandy_bingo, F/M, Fluff, Trinkets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-11
Updated: 2014-05-11
Packaged: 2018-01-24 07:39:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1596950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/pseuds/SegaBarrett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luna gives Neville a gift.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Magical Menagerie

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, and I make no money from this.
> 
> A/N: Written for cotton_candy bingo, "trinkets/knick-knacks".

Neville Longbottom reached down to try and scoop up the quill that he’d dropped on the floor. He was sitting in Divination, which they were sharing with the Ravenclaws. In front of him was Luna Lovegood, who was taking the same class even though she was a fourth year. Trelawney seemed to be impressed with her, but Neville figured that it might be because they were both kind of off-the-wall.

He crashed into Luna’s seat as he reached down, letting out a murmur of apology. 

Instead of protesting, she looked around and met his eyes with her dreamy ones.

“Hello,” she greeted him. 

“Hello,” he mumbled back.

He didn’t really know what to say to Luna. She was terrifying. Admittedly, all girls were terrifying, and a good majority of things were terrifying to Neville. He’d spent the last four years trying desperately to keep from running into a Vanishing Cabinet and staying there for the rest of his time at Hogwarts.

He’d always been a frightened child, as long as he could remember. Maybe he had always known about what had become of his parents, long before his grandmother had ever told him. Maybe it had always been a part of him.

The next class of the day would be Care of Magical Creatures, and he wasn’t really looking forward to it. Hagrid was a nice guy, and Neville knew that most of his friends really liked him, but most of the creatures that Hagrid brought to class tended to be completely terrifying, and Neville felt that he could do without them. He much preferred plants, after all. Plants made sense. If you watered them and did what you were supposed to do, said all the right enchantments, then they would grow. They could even heal people if you picked the right ones.

Animals were unpredictable, as unpredictable as the other students. The Slytherins always picked on him – well, that had actually become predictable by now.  
Neville didn’t need to sit here looking into one of Trelawney’s crystal balls to know that much, to know that he was always going to be the butt of a more popular kid’s joke.

“Neville?” called an airy voice. 

His head darted around, even as he knew that the voice came in front of him in the form of Luna. His throat tightened up and he didn’t know what to say.

Luna was unpredictable.

“Hi, Luna,” Neville whispered. He wished that she would just leave him alone. No, that wasn’t true. He wished that everyone would just leave him alone. He stuck out like such a sore thumb all the time, always so awkward. Luna seemed to be the same way, except for the fact that she had never seemed to care. He couldn’t help but be jealous about that – she seemed not to feel the same burning shame that he always did, the feeling that his parents knew what he was and could come back to him but wouldn’t because he wasn’t worthy, even if he knew that wasn’t, couldn’t be true.

“Hello, Neville.” Luna smiled at him. “I’m excited to see what we’re going to learn today with Hagrid. He is very odd, isn’t he?” 

Neville agreed with that much, that Hagrid was very odd, but he didn’t understand why she found that exciting as opposed to downright terrifying.

“I got you something.”

He looked up at her, finally meeting her eyes, and blinked. Other than his grandmother, no one ever got Neville anything. He wasn’t sure that he was ready for what Luna was going to give him, any more than he was ready for Hagrid’s next death (or at least finger) defying lesson.

“Okay,” he said quietly, for lack of something better to say.

“Hold out your hand.”

Against his own better judgment, he did, and she gently placed something within his palm. He looked down to see that what Luna had given him was a tiny glass unicorn, enchanted into life, lying down against Neville’s lifelines and looking up at him with a peaceful, if not particularly excited, expression.

He had never seen something so beautiful.

“Luna,” he said quietly, deeply regretting his earlier annoyance with her. “You… for me? But why me?”

Luna shook her hair over her shoulder and shrugged.

“I like you,” she said breathily, turned, and walked away.

Neville looked down at the tiny unicorn and breathed, “I like you too.”


End file.
